TMNT: Defence
by princessebee
Summary: 2k14verse. Raphril. April has gotten used to being on the defensive. Also takes place before Weightless; just some stuff I felt really needed to be put down about 2k14 April.


"Don't touch those."

April's hand shot back at the harshness of Raphael's tone and she glanced at him in surprise. She had found him in the weapons room, hulking up against the wall, carefully cleaning the impressive arsenal they kept in meticulous condition.

Raphael was looking at her implacably, his mouth set in a firm line as he polished the long blade of a katana and there was something in his expression that made her instinctively bristle a little.

"Can't get my grubby fingers on them?" she kept her tone playful, not wanting to further dampen the mood she had gone there to lift, shifting away from the bench where the array of gleaming leather, sparkling metal and polished wood spread in a compelling display, moving towards him with a little wiggle in her hips. His eyes flickered over her flirtatiously ambling figure for an instant but dropped quickly back to his task.

"You're not allowed to touch the weapons," he said brusquely. "Not ever. Got it?"

She was surprised by the emphasis in his voice and found herself automatically reacting against it.

"I'm not an idiot," she snapped.

Raphael snorted, moving the cloth steadily up the blade, leaving not a streak or speck in its wake, his huge fingers bending and flexing as he massaged the steel. "Ain't about that."

His belligerence clashed badly with the mood she'd already been in and she put her hands on her hips and glared at him. "Then what is it about?"

He shook his head, stood and strode to the cement slab that served as a bench, carefully laying the katana down where it glittered magnificently beneath the overhead lights. "It's about _you_ not being allowed to touch the weapons. Period."

Raphael sat back down and picked up the second katana from the carefully assembled pile he was working from, not looking at her, his expression truculent and the shift of his jaw suggesting he was grinding his teeth. On some level, April was aware that unless one of them backed down, they were headed for an almighty clash, but right then she didn't care. She was over it.

"What, you think my little girly hands aren't strong enough? That I'll slip in my high heels and cut myself? What, Raphael? Please enlighten me. But only if you're sure my inferior lady brain can fully understand what is sure to be a complex explanation comprehensible only to those pumped with sufficient levels of testosterone."

Far from exploding right back at her, Raphael looked as though she'd sucker-punched him, gazing at her with his jaw dangling, the polishing cloth arrested on the blade, seemingly too shocked to even be angry. Insulted and livid, April glared defiantly back, daring him to answer.

"April – " he started and paused, seeming confounded. She waited, staring at him with a demanding lift to her brow, her chin jutting out. "Christ – it ain't – it's 'cause you got no training. It'd be the same for anyone else who never handled weapons before. It ain't – Jeeze – it ain't 'cause you're a woman."

He was so obviously sincere, his own quick temper having been so abruptly deflated by her indignant outburst, that she was disarmed and immediately felt foolish.

"Sorry," she muttered and crossed her arms over her chest, scuffing a toe against the cement floor. He cocked a brow ridge at her; resumed polishing the katana, then jerked his head to the ledge opposite where he sat.

"Sit down."

Abashed, she wandered to where he had indicated and sat, raking fingers back through her hair, not looking at him though she could feel his gaze on her. "Well, way prove I'm not completely hysterical." She aimed for wry self-awareness, trying to defuse how completely she had overreacted.

He chuckled and in her peripheral she saw him shake his head. "You ain't the only one here with a bad temper, O'Neil."

In relief she glanced over to find him grinning at her, his right hand still carefully, expertly cleaning the weapon that could so easily, carelessly be deadly, his eyes glinting beneath the red of his mask. She thought perhaps he even liked discovering she could be as moody and prickly as he.

She smiled back, her mood rising to find herself taken as she was, without prejudice.

Raphael dropped his gaze back to the blade, his smile fading a little. "What was that about, anyway?"

April sighed, felt irritation well again to recall the frustration of the day's events, a frustration she had experienced too often, too much and yet could never grow accustomed to. _Refused _to grow accustomed to.

"Just – oh God, where to start. Vern. There's a good place. No. There's the _perfect_ place."

She saw him tense at the sound of her partner's name, his expression almost imperceptibly growing grim.

"What's he doing?" Raphael's voice was flat, hard as granite and his scales rippled beneath the light as he seemed involuntarily to flex.

April laughed a little, again ran her fingers back through her hair. "He just won't stop hitting on me. He just _won't stop_. I have sent out every signal I could conceive of, short of writing it in fifty-foot letters in the sky, that I'm not interested, and still he just. Won't. Stop. It's just – " she turned her face towards him, where he sat still and focused on her, his great rough features intent. " – he doesn't take me seriously. He has _never_ taken me seriously. He thinks I'm some vapid piece of eye candy who doesn't have what it takes to make it in serious journalism, he, he – " she paused, her hands rising in claws by her face as she struggled to articulate her fury. " – he _actively _discourages me going after my goals and then – and _then - _ he hits on me! All the time!" She snorted, face contorting, letting her hands drop to her lap. "Like, why, _why _would I want to go out with someone who doesn't take me seriously, who doesn't think I can achieve my dreams, hm? I mean, what the hell is going through his head?"

Raphael's brow twitched and he cocked his head, eyes flickering down to the sword he held. "Near as I could tell, not a whole damn lot."

April laughed a little, enjoying the sense of validation it gave her and the relief she felt to finally get it out. She had no close human friends to offload to about things like this. No family. Taylor had moved out weeks ago and left no forwarding address. And though the bonds had quickly strengthened between her and the turtles, her problems were so uniquely female ones that it had not occurred to her they could understand. "Not a fan?"

Raphael glanced back at her with such a look of dry incredulity she laughed outright. He didn't need to elaborate further.

He stood, rolling his shoulders back so his biceps bulged and she couldn't help the way her eyes ran all over them, seeming never able to get used to their sheer overwhelming girth, or the way the dappled scales flowed so vibrantly across them. Raphael carried the sword over to the stone bench to place it by its twin.

"If he's botherin' you that much, I could have a word." Raphael didn't look at her but his voice was heavy with portent, deadly serious, and again she quickly examined those muscular arms and felt a little thrill run through her to imagine Raphael scaring the ever-loving bejesus out of her excruciating colleague with a single flex of those mighty limbs.

Fighting back a little smile at the thought, she stuck to reality. "See, that's the thing – I have to work with him. That's what makes it so damn difficult. I can't just tell him to fuck off, or things could get awkward on the job. He could get vindictive, you know? Sabotage me. It's happened before."

Raphael seemed practically to throw himself back onto the ledge, yanking a sai towards him and starting to polish the leather with a sudden aggression, though his expression hadn't changed.

"That's fucked," and his voice was black with fury, calling to mind the far-distant rumble of thunder. April felt her cheeks flush he was so outraged on her behalf and not for the first time she realised there was so much more going on beneath Raphael's coarse, tough exterior than might ever be discovered in a lifetime, so closely did he guard his inmost heart.

She clicked her tongue and crossed her ankles, leaning her palms flat on the ledge by her sides. "That's the way the world is, when you're a woman." Her heart burned with fury at it, but right then it was enough just to be able to say it out loud, and be heard.

Raphael's brow furrowed so hard, the red cloth of his mask creased with it, his thick lips set in a stern glower. His hand continued to work beeswax into the leather that wrapped his favoured weapon, bringing the grain to a rich glow. After a moment he spoke:

"You really thought that I – that – the reason I said you couldn't – " and there was such a note of quiet hurt there that she couldn't let him finish.

"No," she interrupted, and then crossed her legs beneath her on the bench, imitating his position. She reflected for a moment, and then finished: "But I've been wrong before." And her voice echoed his hurt.

Silence fell between them, but it was not awkward or strained. Rather it seemed they were both lost to their own contemplations, content to let the other ruminate. April flicked a glance at him, finding her pulse rose a little when she ran her eyes over those incredible large lips that so often were twisted in a scowl or a grimace or merely set in a hard line, as they were right then. His amber eyes caught the light as he examined his work, burning with a deep-set passion like the fire that flickered in the heart of a jewel. The incredible hue of his pebbled flesh gradated from a rich forest green to a pale shade the colour of apples over his muzzle, making his mouth seem more prominent and aggressive, and the scar that intersected it adding depth to a face that was already profoundly defined by character. She couldn't deny that the face she gazed upon was not human any more than she could deny she found it strangely compelling – even beautiful. It at once disturbed and thrilled her to feel that way, as much because it seemed she couldn't stop it – and that it was growing stronger all the time.

April's eyes trailed down over his thick neck and massive shoulders, across the battered plating of his plastron and the large scales that patterned those colossal arms. Raphael was so profoundly, thoroughly masculine that she had assumed there was simply no way he could even begin to comprehend what life was like for her, but as she stared at her new friend – her new friend who increasingly made her heart flutter and skip despite herself – she remembered that he and his family had faced unique challenges of their own; ones that she couldn't ever understand. A lifetime of hiding below ground, unable to reveal themselves to the world, yet constantly tempted by its charms, raised on its cultures and defined by its rules. Still, forever confined to being outside of it, nonetheless.

As Raphael began polishing the blades of his sai, she hesitated and then spoke: "It's – it's the story of my life. All my life I've tried so damn hard to be taken seriously, to get given a chance – to follow my dreams, the way my father taught me. I thought if I just worked hard, took risks, put myself out there – then it would all come together. They'd see my merit and I would achieve my goals. But it's always been the same. They take one look at me and make up their minds. After that they don't even hear the words I'm saying. The only times they ever even pretend to care is when they want something out of me." There was a lump in her throat suddenly and she stared down to her lap where her hands wrung together, rapidly blinking back the tears that smarted her eyes, setting her jaw against the rush of pain that unexpectedly welled up. She could feel Raphael's eyes on her but didn't dare look across to him. "The only man who's ever believed in me was my father."

She couldn't say another word or she really would cry. Her chin wobbled and she fought to keep it still, her hands wringing over and over each other against the blue of her jeans. Raphael was silent and for a moment she wondered if she had made a terrible mistake blurting it all out to him like that – maybe he was insulted she thought her petty issues could compare to the challenges of being a mutant turtle living in the sewers, maybe he didn't understand what her problem even was, maybe he thought she was just being an hysterical girl – hell, maybe he just didn't care. Maybe she had got it all wrong, after all.

But then she heard the rustle of his skin against stone as he stood, the whisper of the leather thongs of his loincloth as he strode over to where she sat, and then he was before her and proffering something outward.

She lifted her gaze enough to see through the film of tears the butt of his sai just in front of her, his thick, calloused fingers positioning the weapon carefully so that the blades ran along the length of his inner arm. The invitation was unmistakeable.

Wonderingly, she reached out and wrapped her hand around the grip, the newly polished leather warm and smooth beneath her palm, and he released it into her hold. It was heavier than she had anticipated and she quickly cupped her other hand beneath the blades, balancing it across her palms, staring down at the shining and much-treasured implement with a pounding heart.

"I believe in you," he said, his deep voice as soft as a caress and her skin tingled exactly as though he really had stroked her cheek with that powerful hand.

April lifted her face to gaze up into his, her lips parting at the strangely and intensely appealing sight of that rugged and inhuman visage, looking down at her with an unusually soft care about it, the tenderness she perceived matched equally by the respect that burned deep in those golden eyes.

"I know," she replied throatily and then felt herself smile at him, a smile that captured her face in a helpless grip of delight as her heart grew warm and bright. "That's why I came here."


End file.
